Compline
by Maia1
Summary: At the end of his life, Elros reflects in a letter to Elrond


_Note: this story was inspired by "When I Am Wise" and "As Little Might Be Thought" by Deborah Judge (see my favorite authors list) - it is a fan-fiction of a fan-fiction.  
In Deborah Judge's stories, Elrond is older than Elros and remembers their father Earendil. Elros does not remember Earendil, and thinks of their captor/foster-father Maglor as his father, which Elrond sees as a betrayal of Earendil.  
When given the choice in young adulthood, Elrond chose to be an Elf, and Elros chose to be a mortal Man. In this story, Elros at the end of his life reflects on his choice of mortality in a letter to Elrond._

**Compline **

Even on the clearest days, he could no longer see Avallone.

His eyes were failing him, as was his body. He moved more slowly, thought more slowly, spoke more slowly. His children and grandchildren grew impatient with him. He did not blame them; he had once been the least patient of young men.

Elrond's voice echoed in his mind down the centuries, "Stop looking out the window and _think_!" And his own childish voice replying, "But history is so dull! I care not what has  
happened; I care what will happen!"

He had recognized early that he would never be a scholar. Far more fun to practice his skills as a swordsman outdoors than to sit in a dusty library poring over irrelevant stories. Far more interesting to look ahead to future possibilities than to look back at what could  
not be changed.

Far less painful, too.

Now his joints ached, and he could no longer outrun his limitations, or his memories.

He studied the paper in front of him, not knowing how to begin. For the first time in his long life, he was trying to commit something of himself to paper. He was not a man of words but a man of action. But now action was lost to him; his time was over and his children's begun. He received all honor, yet he knew they considered him to be irrelevant; they smiled indulgently at his stories. He had taught them to look to the future, but now he was left behind in the past.

He looked at his hands, old and wrinkled and no longer steady. How strange, on Elrond's last visit, to see his brother still young. -_I always wanted to catch up with him, and now I am old while he is just at the beginning of his life. I always looked forward, and laughed  
at him for looking back, but now I have nowhere to look but back.  
_  
He knew now that he would never see Elrond again; he had meant to summon his brother for one last visit, but he knew he would not last that long. And so he would borrow his  
brother's gift, and write.

But he knew not what to say.

Thoughts flowed through his mind, but would coalesce into naught but disparate threads.

_You dwelt in memory even when we were children, yet you will continue in the present long after I have become a memory._

_You wanted me to remember Earendil - father - but it is you who studied father's -Maglor's - past, and I who learned to sail and spent my life exploring new shores, guided ever by the stars._

_I wished to seek and do and make, never to dwell on unpleasant thought, but now in age I have lost all but the memory I scorned. And yet would I have it any different? I sought adventure, the stirring of the blood and the excitement of the moment. And now I have another adventure ahead, a journey beyond the confines of the world. Again my heart quickens at the thought of something new._

_Have you ever felt the stillness at the heart of action? Have you ever been at sea in a storm, the wind roaring about you, knowing your life might end at any second, but that does not matter, because the world is only water and boat? Have you ever been in a battle feeling that you have all eternity for the next sword-thrust?_

_What knowledge is there in books that cannot be found in the bitter teaching of experience? To hold your newborn children, and wonder at the world they will see, that you will never know. To know that you can give them your love, but that they belong to the future, not to you. To watch them grow into manhood while you decline into age. To know that you will pass away as the leaves on a tree, but the tree will remain. To know that the future is yours to shape, and yet you will not see its fruit. _

_Strange that you will see what I have wrought when I will not. What will the deeds of my descendents be? I have tried to teach my children to seek out all possibilities, to never say that something good cannot be done, to always strive beyond themselves. Those were the lessons I learned in youth, from Father Maglor, from my own unquenchable thirst for motion and change, passion and excitement, new life and new worlds._

_The lessons of age are not ones my children wish to hear. But that is all right. They will learn when their time comes._

_We are so limited, we mortals. Though it seems to me that you are more so, you who are bound to Arda. For what is the value of a moment when you know there are so many more ahead? How much more precious is life as I see its end so near. I held my_

_great-grandson in my arms today, and saw the past and the future as one in this child.   
There is wisdom and peace in knowing I must soon move on._

_And yet, and yet. It goes by so quickly. There is so much I will never see, so much I will never know._

_But you also will not know everything, even with all the ages of Arda to learn. Will you ever have to accept your limitations as I have? Perhaps it is you who never cease to strive, while I must finally accept that my striving is done._

_All things end in time. Do Elves truly see that? Will you not try to keep things as they are, even when you should accept that what you loved is lost?_

_I do not regret my mortal choice. I have lived richly. And perhaps it is better that I do not know what my legacy will be. I have built a great kingdom; I do not have to watch as it crumbles beneath the waves, as all great kingdoms eventually must._

_And when it does? My children will re-build. For that is the strength of men:  
not in memory, but in hope. We can see all that we care for lost, and yet find the strength to begin anew, not for ourselves, but for our children and their children._

_I look upon the earth itself and all that is in it, and see my own mortality. We are all dust. As are you, my brother, though you may not yet be forced to see it. All that you build is dust, too. Strive not to keep what you build from falling. Rather, strive to keep hope alive in the darkness._

_Remind my children, when they forget, that even in their darkest hour, there is always the  
possibility of new beginnings._

_There is so much more to say, and yet I find I do not have the strength to say it. My body fails me, I who always gloried in my physical power. So I will simply say this:_

_I love you, my brother._

_Please forgive me._

_Know that only when you have lost both the past and the future will you be truly wise._

_I hope we may meet again, beyond Arda, where memory and hope are one._

_Elros_

It was the first time since childhood that he had signed his name without title or lineage.

He got up from his desk and went out onto the balcony. He collapsed into a chair. He felt exhausted; he had put his last strength into the writing.

He looked up at the stars. The night air smelled fresh. He breathed it in, suddenly knowing with a sense of profound peace that it was his last breath.

Spring was coming.

In the eastern sky Earendil rose. In a few hours it would be dawn.


End file.
